1. Summarizing: A Tool for Thought
A simple and powerful presentation by
Kathleen Alessi and Karen Butler
Introduce ourselves…
Today we wanted to share simple and powerful strategies to aide 2nd grade teachers in the classroom with comprehension.
Research tells us that strategic readers constantly summarize information to check their comprehension and merge new information with previous knowledge. Reviewing, sorting, & sifting information can lead to new insights that change the way readers think.
SO – how do we create those type of strategic readers?? Just like many skills in life - you need a strong foundation of other skills. IE: You won’t be a good carpenter without knowledge of tools and how each works. A student won’t be a good summarizer without having some skills already in his/her strategy belt.
Where should you start….

2. Determine Importance
Connect and Engage- Students skim text and pictures to get an idea of content. Students can imitate or act out an action.
Model- Define detail. Model how to distinguish interesting details from important information using a T chart and sticky notes.
An Anchor Chart is a MUST!
Guide- Read students’ stick notes and ask if they think it is interesting or most important. Invite kids to mark most important information with a star or asterisk.
Collaborate- Kids join a partner and read one section at a time coding most important details in each section with a star or asterisk.
Share-Ask kids to share. Add most important to Anchor Chart. Help distinguish most important from interesting by asking “What makes you think that?” “How did you come up with that?” “Can you say more about that?”
Students need to have d. imp. In their strategy toolbelt in order to summarize. Distinguishing between details/main idea. (IE, Little Red Riding Hood)
We thought it was important to cover this strategy prior to Summarizing due to it’s vast importance. When your teaching det. Importance. this is a sample lesson on how to get students thinking about BIG IDEAS….

3. Amazing Helen Keller Interesting Important Details Information
Helen Keller was blind and deaf, but she didn’t let anything stand in her way.
She believed blind and deaf people could do almost anything.
She taught other deaf and blind people to read.
Born 120 years ago
She loved riding horses
Her eyes are open but she is blind
Explain chart…
Remember to emphasize questioning/sharing is important
Some kids may need to dictate their response. Questioning will help kids distinguish interesting from most important.
“What makes you think that?” “How did you come up with that?”
“Can you say more about that?”

4. Your turn to try it. Read the short passage
Your turn to try it! Read the short passage. Use sticky notes to take notes. Place your stick note on the T chart.
Pass out Retired story…
Connect/Engage – skim article (setting a purpose for reading) what do you think the article will be about?
Model – today we are going to learn how to distinguish a detail from a big idea. We are going to use this anchor chart (Interesting Detail / Important Information) to help us with our thinking. Follow along as I read the beginning of the passage. READ. Wow, she is a retired schoolteacher that taught fourth grade just like me! Ask participants, “Which is the most important information from that statement and which is a detail” Turn to each other and talk…
Take sticky-note and place on chart.
Guide/Collaborate: Let’s try this together. Read the rest of article. On your sticky-notes write 2 things you value as important or interesting. Talk about it with your partner. Put a STAR next to the notes that are important.
Share: Call on a group of participants to share their learning on most important. Add their learning to the chart. Call on a participant to share their interesting detail – add their learning to the chart.
Wrap-Up: Review the process / details are connected to important information.

5. Summarizing
Connect and Engage- Discuss and define what a summary is. Review information students learned from reading and taking notes on a topic.
Explain summary writing and note taking.
Model- Explain and model combining information and create a group summary. Start with important facts and model organizing the facts. Model how adding questions and thoughts merges thinking with the information.
Guide- Share an Anchor Chart that lists the steps of writing a summary.
Collaborate- Kids create a summary in small groups with information already gathered. Check that gathered information is accurate. Organize and combine the information from Post-its to make sentences. Confer with kids to correct misconceptions.
Share-Have kids share summaries to wrap up the lesson.
This is Stephanie Harvey’s sample lesson on how to introduce the strategy of summarizing. Talk through it…

6. Summary Anchor Chart
1. Reread your notes on the topic. Make sure they are accurate and in your own words.
2.Think about the topic and the information that tells about it.
3. Put the notes in order-what comes first, second, third, etc.
4. Remember to tell what is important, but don’t tell too much.
Other things you may want to include on your anchor chart (taken from WriteTools pg. 133)
Be shorter than original text
Paraphrasing rather than directly copied words/phrases/sentences
Big Ideas in order
Eliminate details
Exclude personal opinion
Leave out outside information not in the selection.

7. Let’s look at some real examples from real students!

8. Another Strategy for Summarizing…Story Impressions
Students will
Predict
Monitor and Clarify
Check Predictions
Summarize information from the story
Example:
A Bad Case of the Stripes
by David Shannon and Chart paper
Share what we did in after-school tutoring

9. Camilla Cream
lima beans
first day of school
stripes
changing
shapes and colors
distraction
specialists
huge crowd
old woman
normal
cured
weird
Story Impression
“A Bad Case of Stripes” by David Shannon
Before Reading- look at the words below. The words were taken from
the story, A Bad Case of Stripes. Use each word in the order that it
Appears and predict what you think the story will be about.
______________________________________________________________
During Reading – use the story impression words to pair share and tell
what is happening in the story. Stop every few pages to monitor and clarify
understanding.
After Reading –evaluate your prediction. Use the story impression words
to help you write a summary. Make sure you tell only the important parts in 3-5 sentences.

10. Let’s look at some more real examples from real students!
** What do you think we would need to do next for these students?

11. Summarizing using Write Tools and Jot Dots
Step 1.
NAME IT
VERB IT
BIG PICTURE
Step 2.Use Jot Dots to paraphrase and list big
ideas. Each Jot Dot should be about words or less (page 135 in Write Tools)
Lots of different strategies in their toolbelt so they have options to choose from…

12. Name It Verb It Big Picture
“A Bad Case of the Stripes” describes Camilla Cream’s embarrassment by David Shannon about being different and how she overcame it.
Jot Dots
Camilla is embarrassed about liking beans
Camilla refuses to eat beans
Camilla gets a strange illness
Camilla eats beans and gets better
Camilla learns being herself is ok

13. *Students need to know how to Determine Importance before they can Summarize. *T-Charts and Anchor Charts Can help students to Summarize. *Story Impressions and Name It, Verb It, Big Picture are strategies for Summarizing.
Good bye and Happy Summarizing!!
Kathleen Alessi and Karen Butler